The Kids In The Hall

As a collective, Canadian sketch troupe The
Kids In The Hall seemingly disappeared after some scattered reunion dates and
compilation DVDs earlier this decade, but that's about to change: They're
embarking on a 30-city, two-month tour. The "Live As We'll Ever Be" outing isn't
being billed as a reunion tour, though—Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin
McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson are emphasizing that they're
performing almost exclusively new material, in hopes of eventually creating a
TV-show follow-up to their offbeat, eponymous 1988-1995 sketch show, and a
movie follow-up to 1996's Brain Candy. Armed with new sketches about hateful babies,
imaginary girlfriends, and drunken superheroes, The Kids In The Hall talked to The
A.V. Club
backstage after the opening night of the tour. In a chaotic, affable five-man
interview (during which Thompson iced a muscle he'd pulled in his calf during
the performance), they discussed the new material, the pitfalls of Saturday
Night Live,
and why they're working together again.

The
A.V. Club: How did you think the show went tonight?

Scott
Thompson: Great.

Dave
Foley: Not
great.

ST:
No, it
was terrible.

Kevin
McDonald: I
personally thought it went very well. Some bumpy patches, but it could have
gone a lot worse. I give it a seven out of 10.

Mark
McKinney: The
show was funny three days ago, and then people put tape on the floor and
started saying "You have to stand in this light, and do this, and don't forget
this wig."

DF: Apparently that's how
rehearsal works.

Bruce
McCulloch: We're
like blues musicians who can't play guitar. We're about the spirit, and I
thought the spirit was pretty good tonight.

KM:
The
spirit was willing.

AVC:
Scott referred to the rehearsal as a fiasco.

KM:
It was a
bad rehearsal.

ST:
I thought
it was one of the worst dresses ever.

BM:
You know
those lights that just turn and change colors? That's Scott. He goes through a
range of emotions from "This is the greatest fucking thing we ever did!
Fucking look out, America!" to "Oh my God! I have nothing but a clock radio!
Who am I, mommy?" That will be within four seconds, and then he'll be back to
"It's the greatest thing ever!" So you just caught him at the color dark
purple, not to be confused with Deep Purple.

MM:
No, this
is the way Scott likes to end the show. Scott feared the show went well, the
crowd was hot, and now he has an injury.

BM:
"Ice!
Ice! I work so hard!"

MM:
"I
have an injury! An injury!"

ST:
I have an
injury fetish. There's no getting around it.

DF:
Doesn't
this bring back memories of watching Bruce ice his calves in his office all the
time?

MM: Then he switched from doing marathons to
writing marathon Gavin scenes. [All laugh.] Ooh, take that. I'm burning you up,
I burned you down, I made you into my little clown. Oh yeah!

AVC: How did you put the new material
together?

KM: We started two years ago. We got together
in Los Angeles. Every six months or a year, we would get a week together.

DF: We gave ourselves three days to write 90
minutes of material,and we put the show up that weekend. And in three days, we
actually came up with about three hours of material, and 90 minutes of it
wasn't bad.

KM: [Laughs.] It's what we used to do in the
old days when we were a club act.

MM: Actually, that was the premise of the
whole thing. We said, "Let's get together and write a show like we did."

BM: It was just to go back to the old impulse.
If we're going to do it again, there's no reason to do it other than we want
to. Now, our careers don't depend on each other, and we're only doing it
because we want to. I think other times, it was like, [Adopts dejected tone.]
"Okay, we'll go on tour." We really loved it, but it was a simple artistic
impulse when we began.

AVC: If the process is similar, is the
experience different now?

KM: It's a circle. We've sort of gone back to
the old days, before the TV show.

DF: The stuff in this show is much more written,
where even scenes you're not in—everybody contributed to everything. More
than anything, we were excited about how much fun it was to write together
again. We hadn't really written together since Brain Candy.

ST: Writing is a difficult thing. You've really
got to be open to the people. We're in a stage now in our lives where we're
willing to be open with each other again. That's what obscurity will do to you.
It'll open you up.

I brought in a whole bunch
of scenes I thought I wasn't even going to read. I mean, it changes
tremendously with these geniuses. We wrote a ton of shit that didn't get done. But
Dave was right, because it's not exactly like the TV show. As the show grew, we
had other writers to use to hide from each other, and as it went along, we kind
of got more uncomfortable with each other.

BM: It did become more about
the cult of the read-through as the show progressed, and I think we tried to go
back, too. The easiest thing to do as you go on is to not deal with each other,
and the reason to do this is to deal with each other.

KM: But also, the cult of the read-through was
about surprising you guys. I didn't want to write with you guys, I wanted to
surprise you and make you laugh on Friday.

DF: 'Cause then you'd have a better chance of
getting it in the show.

KM: Yes. But also I enjoyed that as a
performance thing.

ST: The other thing about the read-through is
that no matter what you bring in, you know it's going to improve with the other
group members. As you get along, you want to do it on your own, but with these
guys, you can't really hide from the truth.

AVC: What is that truth?

ST: That not everything I write is gold. That,
or it's fool's gold.

AVC:
Are there characters you'll no longer attempt to play?

ST:
I won't
play a teenager.

DF:
Or anyone
in their 20s. [Laughs.]It used to be, we weren't believable as the old businessmen,
and now we're not believable as teenagers.

AVC:
It's that circle again.

DF:
Yeah,and soon we won't be
believable as people that are alive.

AVC: Is there material you're glad to be
rid of?

BM: Well, there's shit we'd never do again. We
had thought about doing "Salty Ham," and then we didn't do "Salty Ham."

ST: Even the old ones we do are very obscure
scenes, and they're not remotely—it's not that they're not good, they're
not classics. They're not ones people can recite word for word.

AVC: How do you differentiate between an
obscure scene in the show and one that isn't as obscure?

DF: I guess you know what's not obscure because
people tell you.

ST: We just assume that the original "Chicken
Lady" is a classic. We assume the first
"Simon And Hecubus" is a classic. Maybe we're wrong.

KM: Aren't they all obscure?

MM: We're The Kids In The Hall.

DF: Pretty much our most popular sketch is
still obscure. [Laughs.]

ST: Basically, we're an obscure group.

[pagebreak]

AVC: Has your sense of humor changed
since you started?

ST: I would say not a bit.

DF: No, no, you've improved quite a bit.

ST: Oh. I'm much funnier.

KM:
Our point
of reference has changed, but it comes from the same place. There's baby scenes
in the show, because some of us have babies. But it's still the same dark
way—me and the gay one don't have any babies.

ST:
We keep
trying. But together, it's not working.

KM:
Tonight,
on the bus, we'll try again.

ST: You're ovulating, right?

KM: Yes, it's my ovulation.

DF:
Actually,
the weird thing is that the dynamic within the group is almost identical to
what it was 20 years ago.

MM:
[Mimes
pulling out a gun.] Well, it's about to change.

AVC:
Speaking of which, some of you have said you haven't all quite gotten along in
the past, because you're so opinionated. Do you think that conflict is
necessary to create anything worthwhile?

DF:
I don't
know if it's necessary.

KM:
But it's
inevitable.

MM:
I don't
know. I think there's a certain mythology to—when you're unsocialized
20-year-olds—I think you were even a teenager, Dave, when you started in
the troupe—and you're guys without women, and you have no internal censor
at all—it's like five computer geeks, only you're comedy geeks, and so we
were really, really hard on each other. I think part of the reason we've been
able to get back together is, we've sort of managed to put some Band-Aids over
some of the things that were said in the club days and early TV days.

KM:
When
Camper Van Beethoven got back together, and—

MM:
And I
don't think—

KM:
Sorry,
sorry, sorry.

ST:
See the
conflict there?

MM:
Hey, fuck
you, you fucking talking fucking prick.

KM:
You talky
talk talk.

ST: You octoroon.

DF:
You blue
head.

KM:
Sorry
Mark. Go ahead.

MM:
Now I
don't fucking want to talk now. [Laughs.] I think there's a lot of myths about
creativity, like, "Oh man, I was always great at writing when I was high," or
something like that, and I don't think it's true. I think you're either funny
or you're not.

ST:
Well,
that's true.

MM:
I think
you're either funny or you're not. I think the conflict maybe spurred us for a
little while, but its value got spent pretty quick and pretty early.

ST:
We went
over the edge.

MM:
We went
over the edge, yeah.

ST:
I mean,
it's not—believe me, we still fight.

DF:
Well, it
was a great crucible in the early days. But after 10 or 15 years of it, it got
to the point where it was more destructive than instructive.

MM:
Everybody
stormed out. Bruce spat on me. [Laughs.]

ST:
You spat
on me, too.

MM:
Then I
spat on you. [Pointing at Bruce.] Then you spat on me. Funny we didn't turn it
into a sketch.

BM:
We used
to do a thing onstage where we'd spit on each other's faces.

DF:
Yeah,
yeah, you did. That wasn't right!

ST:
[Laughs.]
Of course I know it wasn't right.

BM:
We used
to do a scene where just spit in each other's faces. It was a vaudeville act
called The Something Brothers. Ptui, ptui, aahh!

ST:
[To Dave,
laughing.] Your wife and I tangled!

BM: Guys, guys, you're going
to take us back.

ST:
We're
going back to some horrible days. I kicked his door in.

DF: That's true. You once
came over to my house and kicked my door in.

KM: You were that strong?
Wow. Not anymore, huh? [Pointing to Scott's leg.]

AVC:
It seems like what's contributed to your troupe's longevity is the emphasis on
character-driven sketches over pop-culture references. Was that intentional?

ST:
Absolutely.

DF:
We didn't
want to do current events. We figured that's Saturday Night Live's thing.

ST:
And we'd
have to read the paper.

DF:
We didn't
want to do parody because we were allbig fans of SCTV.

BM:
And some
of us thought parody was a weak art form.

DF:
Actually,
a lot of people at SCTV thought that, too.

AVC:
Considering your opinion of parody, was it difficult for those of you who
worked for Saturday Night Live?

MM:
Yeah. But
I didn't work
on Saturday Night Live, it turns out.

BM:
The thing
I found discombobulating about Saturday Night Live is—I mean, we're an
impulsive troupe, and I remember they would talk about everything forever, all
the Harvard guys. It was all so heady, and there wasn't so much performance in
it. I think the thing that was nice about having our own show was that we did
have to sell to each other, sort of, but if someone said, "I'm just going to go
up to a beatbox and I'm going to dance," we'd kind of get to try it. We didn't
have to have intellectual conversations about comedy. And in fact, we all hate
having intellectual conversations about comedy, yet we'll all do it when we
feel we need the floor.

DF:
Anytime
anybody really wanted to do something, they'd usually get to do it.

BM:
Pretty
much.

DF: Yeah.

ST:
But we're
not as educated.

AVC:
Are you still in touch with Lorne Michaels?

DF:
He calls
every day, mostly just to ask advice. "Uh, I'm having trouble with the kids, my
kids are really grown up. I don't know if I'm really there for them enough.
Maybe I'm not giving them what they need." And we say, "Lorne, you're a good
dad."

AVC:
That's all he needs to hear?

DF:
"It's all
about love. You're just giving them the love they need." No, we haven't spoken
to Lorne. [Laughs.] I don't know. The last time was, what, probably around Brain
Candy
days?

MM:
He came
to our last show in New York.

DF:
I used to
go over to Saturday Night Live every time I was in New York.

BM:
I see him
about once a year.

ST:
Where'd
you see him?

BM:
Saturday
Night Live.

AVC:
That makes sense.

DF: Because that's the only
place he ever is.

[pagebreak]

AVC:
Are there any sketches that stand out for you as being especially absurd or
fucked-up, or maybe you went too far?

BM:
We always
talk about [how] "Love And Sausages" almost broke up the troupe. It was a weird
film.

BM:
Well, it
was just too—I know personally, once we started experimenting with films
and different style films, then I think that got, if anything, a little
indulgent. I probably—I would have liked the show to have gotten more
indulgent, if anything. And I think if we probably carried on, we would have
probably done that, in a way.

DF:
We'd get more
and more like Elephant Parts, you mean?

BM:
Yeah.

ST:
But that
wasn't that funny.

KM:
There's
funny stuff in Elephant Parts.

DF:
Yeah, but
it's pretty indulgent.

KM:
Every now
and then, there's funny sketches.

ST:
Yeah,
I've got regrets for certain things, but I don't know—

MM:
Oh, I can
think of one half-hour thing you did.

ST:
Yeah, I
think I went too far.

KM:
He did a
half-hour thing that had a whole story, it was a Buddy Cole Christmas special.

ST:
Maybe he
shouldn't have flown. Did you see those men that I was flying with? My God!

MM:
I
remember that week in the studio, all of us, like, checking in, meeting in dark
corners—"He's out on the floor with Rip Taylor."

BM:
He'd come
in with 40 pages, and he'd change everything. And he'd give you a new line
reading and stuff—it's like, I was the beaver, and he kept yelling at me
because I wasn't being the beaver very well.

DF:
"You're
not even trying!"

BM:
The
beaver was supposed to have to want to fuck the queen. And it was like "Oh, I'm
so mad
at you! You're fucking not even trying!" "I'm trying! Fucking beaver! What am I
supposed to do?" And the brown makeup is melting on my fucking head [All
laughing.] Beautiful boys with fur for fucking 14 hours

ST:
What
they're trying to say is that they regret their behavior.

MM:
It was
like a slow-moving-but-burning freight train coming at you slowly, because he
kept bringing this fat half-hour script in and read it in its entirety, and there'd
be these crickets.

DF:
Fat three-hour script.

MM:
And we'd
be like, "Yeah, yeah, go work on that one." And we'd be like, "Whew! Dodged
that one." And eventually, after a particularly spectacular tantrum, we
green-lit it. I don't think that's the way we do business now.

DF:
Yes it
is.

KM:
And Rip
Taylor was in it, and he kept complaining that the confetti wasn't big enough.

ST:
He stayed
a week.

DF:
That's
when Buddy Cole was this character who seemed so real and so true, and then suddenly he
kept flying.

KM:
You know
what was funny, was Santa Claus: "Buddy, we have to talk."

ST:
So really
what they're saying is, I'm the only one who went too far.

KM:
No, no,
that's just the one thing we remembered.

DF:
We
probably all had at least one thing we did.

ST: Oh, we did. "Pickle!?"

DF:
Yeah, I
admit that.

ST: We did. I know you do.

MM:
Mine is
"Standing In The New Style."

ST:
Absolutely.

DF:
"Standing
In The New Style"? Ah, yeah. Well, now that's become the thing: pirate talk.

MM:
Has it?

DF:
Yeah.

ST:
I refuse
to believe that.

DF:
Ever
since Pirates Of The Caribbean.

AVC:
Do you still feel confident in dresses?

MM:
Less and
less.

DF:
I don't
feel sexy in them anymore. I used to feel sexy.

MM: No, I think that's a hard
one. You really
have to pick the moment and really, reallylike your character.

MM: I feel somewhat
confident. I still think we can do specific characters, but not everything we
used to do.

DF:
I still
like it. We used to do that thing for your short film.

ST:
Yeah,
Dave and I did a short film where we played women, but like Anjelica Huston.
But she's a handsome woman.

DF:
"She is,"
he said politely.

AVC:
Is there a common thread you see among sketch troupes who claim you as an
influence?

MM: What I like about them is
they behave, or their comedy seems to be inflected with—like they're rock
bands. They're not people who are gunning for a slot of the network pie. You
get a sense that they came together voluntarily—no one put them together.

KM:
Like an
indie band.

MM:
They have
that ethic.

KM:
And
there's superficial things, like they play women, but that's like you copy Led
Zeppelin just by taking your shirt off.

DF:
But even
when we were doing our show, there was an influence that started the show off
in Saturday Night Live.

ST:
And they
mocked us, with the "Gap Girls."

KM: With the strippers. But
they all started playing women.

DF:
They
started doing sketches that were more like what we were doing.

ST:
Did they
really?

AVC:
Did you talk to Lorne Michaels about that?

ST: No.

KM:
"Good
job, Lorne!"

ST:
"Good
job, Daddy."

DF:
But
obviously, there's a ton of stuff that influences what we do.

AVC:
Was it difficult to get your collaborative muscles working together again?

DF:
Oddly, it
wasn't at all.

AVC:
Did that surprise you?

KM:
Yes. We
talked about it.

DF:
We were
fairly nervous coming in. I think everyone was a little nervous the first time
we did that. I know I was. When we did the first writers' meeting at the Steve
Allen Theater, I really thought, "All right, if this doesn't go well, this is
the last time we're going to work together." And it went really well.

ST:
And then
you took your dark glasses off and things were better. Yeah, we were scared,
but it worked out.

DF:
Yeah,
especially when I saw the pile of scripts Scott had. It was this tall.